WND MEDIA

Fox News ratings down, but not disastrous

MSNBC far more successful at retaining viewers since election

Published: 12/31/2012 at 7:51 PM

(POLITICO) Like most news outlets, Fox News has taken a post-election ratings hit — but it’s not as dire as some would have you believe.

Don Kaplan of New York Daily News reports that Fox News host Sean Hannity “lost around half of his audience in the weeks after the election, while his Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly… retained around 70% of his audience.”

The official numbers, which Neilsen provided to POLITICO upon request, go through the week of Nov. 19 and show “Hannity” (9 p.m. ET) finishing with 1.952 million viewers, down from a 3.6 million high in the week before the election. Ratings for “The O’Reilly Factor” (8 p.m. ET) fell from 4.135 million in the week prior to the election to 3.049 million three weeks later.